In an instance of truth in advertising, this week's NPR round-table pop-culture podcast offers almost a full hour of mostly Oscars analysis. All four of us saw all nine Best Picture contenders, so we'll be covering everything from what happened when Stephen Thompson finally sat down to watch Les Miserables after quoting the featurette for months to Glen's surprising theories about Amour. (Very surprising.)

We talk about the trajectory of Steven Spielberg, the structure of Life Of Pi, the lack of music in Amour, the song in Les Miserables that it's totally okay to cry at (it is!), how Beasts Of The Southern Wild treats poverty and loss, and lots and lots and lots more. We take it a little easy on Argo, because we talked about it on a previous podcast about the nature of suspense and tension in film. Please understand: we do our best not to spoil anything important, but certainly, if it's important to you to be completely in the dark about these movies, you'll want to see them before you listen.

Among the things you might want to read alongside or after would be Gene Demby's terrific blog post about race in Django Unchained and Lincoln, NPR's interview with Quvenzhane Wallis, and Glen's piece on Orson Scott Card and the nature of Superman, just because.

We still find time for a round of What's Making Us Happy This Week: Stephen is happy about a discussion of aging, Trey is happy about a short film series, and one in particular. Glen is happy about an interview with a seeming curmudgeon. (Not himself.) I am happy about a new series I've been binge-consuming, as well as about a conversation that will make me happy forever.